The armed robbery campaign of some turncoat policemen ended
when they were arrested during a joint operation of the Anambra State
Commissioner of Police Monitoring Unit and the Special Anti-Robbery
Squad (SARS) of the command.
According to Sun Newspaper, the two policemen, 38-year-old
Corporal I.L.O. Peter, serving at Oguta Division of the Imo State Police
Command and Constable Nicholas Ogbianu, 37, who was dismissed from the
Delta State Police Command, were arrested in Onitsha, Anambra State, for
robbery and for impersonation respectively.
Anambra State
Commissioner of Police, Mr. Hosea Karma said the
Commander of Anambra SARS, Supol James Nwafor and his men had been
keeping close tabs on the two alleged police culprits, following
reports by individuals that they had been robbed or their vehicles
snatched on the highway by policemen who were wrongly assumed by
innocent members of the public, to be on official duty at checkpoints.
Deeply disturbed by the increasing number of such reports, a special
dragnet was laid out by the command to apprehend the rotten eggs, whose
evil activities had given the police an odorous smell before the public.
It
was not long before the perpetrators fell into the net of the police.
As Sunday Sun learnt from Karma, the alleged bad egg Corporal Peter and
accomplices, Ekene Uche Ohanusi and Benjamin Obinwanne, were caught
during one of their operations. Recounting some of the past escapades
of the gang, Karma said: “The gang has been involved in several cases of
armed robbery operations and snatching of cars along Onitsha-Owerri
Expressway and robbed several commercial vehicles both during the day
and at night. Also, we also got intelligence information that some
policemen had been robbing people along the highway. So we set up a
monitoring team that worked with the Commander of SARS and his men. That
was how we arrested the suspect, Corporal Peter and his gang members
during their operation.”
He explained that Ogbianu was dismissed
from the Delta State Police Command, following his transfer to Adamawa
State Police Command in 2013. Karma said that Ogbianu launched into a
new ‘career’ of impersonating genuine police officers and engaging in
illegal duties at Onitsha and collecting money from motorists and
commercial motorcyclists. It was in the course of this that officers of
the CP’s Monitoring Unit arrested him at No. 1 Anglican Lane, Nkpor-Agu,
Upper Iweka, Onitsha, while fully dressed in police uniform.
The
suspect, Corporal Peter, who spoke with Sunday Sun said: “I was
recruited into the Nigeria Police Force at Oji-Rivers Police College,
Enugu State, in 1999 and posted to Imo State Police Command, where I was
serving at the Oguta Division of the state command.”
Continuing,
he told Sunday Sun: “I formed a gang of armed robbers. We robbed
passengers travelling from Anambra State to Imo State. Sometimes, we
will mount road block as if we are carrying out stop-and-search, and
then rob the people or snatch big cars from the owners. After snatching
the car, a member of the gang will sell the car and give me my own
share, which may be from N100,000 to N200,000.
Peter further
disclosed that he is a native of Udi Local Government Area, Enugu
State, adding he received regular returns from members of his gang even
when he was on course at the police college.
His words: “I went
on course for promotion to rank of corporal at Oji River Police College,
Enugu State. My gang members still continued with the armed robbery
operations and always sent money to me during the course. I went into
armed robbery five years ago. Sometimes, I give out my arm and
ammunition to the gang to use for armed robbery operations. I never
imagined that one day I would be caught.
“On June 5, 2015, a
member of the gang and myself snatched a Lexus SUV with registration
number BBC 105JT, along Ozubulu road, belonging to one Mrs. Jennifer
Adaeze Ohizu and we wanted to sell the car in Aba. We also snatched
another Toyota SUV at Okija, Anambra State and collected some ransom
from the victims. We made money when we sold the SUV.”